


I'll Crawl Home to Her

by Maimaktês (0o_Higanbana_o0)



Series: Sing Along, Sweet Despair [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anoint yoursleves in ashes and adorn sackcloth, F/M, Gen, Hozier gives me Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0o_Higanbana_o0/pseuds/Maimakt%C3%AAs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellarke reunion, take A.</p><p>Post 2x10, post failed Mt Weather infiltration.</p><p>As he runs on the uneven ground, there’s only one thought looping over and over in Bellamy’s head:<br/>'I need to find Clarke and warn her about Emerson and Wallace’s plan.'</p><p>Set to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3g0d6Cgqyg">THIS</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Crawl Home to Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viansian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viansian/gifts), [Brenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenna/gifts), [jguidobono](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jguidobono/gifts).



> I don't know what happened, it was supposed to stay under 1000 words.  
> 

 

**I’ll Crawl Home to Her**

 

 

 

 -- Boys workin' on empty --  
\-- Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? --  
\-- I just think about my baby --  
\-- I'm so full of love I could barely eat --  


 

Bellamy jumps through the Containment Area door.

It closes on him as Emerson rounds the corner, heavy military boots skidding on the slick lab floor. The siren wails a couple of times, the trap underneath his feet opens, and he’s falling down the chute, arms flailing helplessly.

 

Raven warned him, it’s a steep fall. He still ends up scraping his foot, hard, on the way down and it tears a scream out of his mouth.

But at last, he’s out of this fucking place.

 

_Fuckity-bye, you crazy assholes._

_Three days in Mt Weather, that’s more than enough. I’ll be on my way now, fuck you very much._

 

He lands roughly in a wagon half-filled with dead bodies. His sternum collides with a bony elbow, and it knocks the breath out of him.

 

As he lays there, gasping like a fish, desperately trying to suck some air in his lungs, two strong hands grab his upper arms and lift him off the wagon. In his panic, he tries to kick his attacker in the chest, but he uses the foot he just hurt in his fall and he howls in pain.

 

Well, at least he’s able to breathe again.

 

His eyes fall on the Reaper’s face, and in the dim light of the tunnel it takes him a couple of seconds to realize that it’s not just any Reaper, but Lincoln.

The Grounder’s eyes are feverish, his lips are caked with a dried up, pinkish foam.

 

“I was… waiting… for you,” the man grunts as he puts Bellamy almost gently down on the floor, minding his bloodied foot.

He bends down to retrieve dirty clothes and a pair of Grounder leather shoes. He pushes the bundle into Bellamy’s hands.

 

“Time… to go,” Lincoln wheezes, specks of blood red foam coating his lips.

 

“Do you have your radio?” Bellamy inquires as he slips into the thick hide pants. Every piece of clothing he dons feels like a small bit of humanity falling back into place.

_No more monkey-boy, running around butt-naked._

The shirt is too small for him, he can’t close it, but still, it qualifies as clothing. He almost feels like a decent person again.

 

“We need to contact the camp right away,” he grunts as he struggles to push his bloodied foot in the rigid leather shoe. He glances expectantly at Lincoln, but the Grounder dashes all his hopes with a shake of his head.

“No more radio. It got broken in the struggle.”

 

Bellamy pauses to look at the bigger man. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are hollow. He seems to have trouble breathing.

“You okay, man?”

 

The words have barely left his mouth when distant voices are heard. Shadows dance on the walls.

 

Lincoln shoves him gently toward the mouth of the tunnel

“You… run… I’ll hold them off…”

 

“No!” Bellamy hisses in a panicked whisper, trying to grab the man’s hand and to pull him along toward the exit.

“I can’t leave you here! You have to come with me! Octavia is waiting for you!”

 

Lincoln shakes his head at him again, slowly.

“I will come back to her… But I must stop them first. Now, go!”

 

One final push at Bellamy’s chest and the man turns around, running toward the voices.

 

“Shit, Lincoln!”

The Grounder doesn’t turn back.

Biting down a curse, Bellamy takes off into the woods.

 

Outside, the new dawn is still bleak.

 

As he runs on the uneven ground, there’s only one thought looping over and over in Bellamy’s mind.

_I need to find Clarke and warn her about Emerson and Wallace’s plan. We must stop them._

 

 

  -- When, my, time comes around --  
\-- Lay me gently in the cold dark earth --  
\-- No grave can hold my body down --  
\-- I'll crawl home to her --

 

 

 

His first day in Mt Weather was spent in a haze of pain and raw, festering hatred. He bit the glove clean off a scientist’s hand when he got tired of being prodded around like cattle.

He got beaten by a couple of guards and sedated for his trouble. They had to use a fucked-up pill-gun thing to shoot the meds down his throat, but in the end, they managed to knock him out.

Wash, beat, harvest. Rinse and repeat. The Mt Weather ride, the never-ending cycle of fun.

 

Bellamy was in prime medical condition when he arrived in the Harvest room. Growing up in the Ark, he had all his shots, and he was pumped with vitamins and all kinds of shit, like the rest of the Arkers. The Grounders, on the other hand, had to make do with whatever they found lying around, and that showed on their blood tests.

 

His own bloodwork must have been spotless, because the white coats decided not to ditch him after draining him the first time. He was put in a cage and became an Official Mt Weather Blood Cow.

 

Jasper found him the night after the first harvest. The boy had seen him through a hole in the wall and slipped into the lab. He showed up in front of Bellamy’s cage with snot running down his nose and a tremulous smile, drowned in tears.

 

Bellamy had never been so happy to see the little brat.

 

It was even better when the kid brought Miller back with him, a couple of hours later. While Miller filled him in on the latest news, Jasper worked wonders on a scrap of metal and turned it into a makeshift skeleton key to open Bellamy’s cage.

                                                                                                                       

 

Thanks to Jasper’s handiwork, Bellamy was able to slip out of his cage and investigate around the lab in the dead of night. He travelled inside the walls, away from the cameras, intent on gleaning whatever information he could lay his grubby hands on.

But search as he might, he couldn’t locate Monty and Harper.

At dawn, he met Miller to share his findings and entrusted him with the mission to contact Clarke. He asked Miller to not tell the girls about the harvest. He didn’t want Octavia to worry. Then he went back to the Harvest room.

 

Stepping back into the cage and closing the door behind him was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

 

 

 

On the second day, they didn’t harvest his blood.

They knocked him out (again) and cut him open. He woke up later in his cage, mouth dry and body throbbing with pain. There was a row of stitches running down his right flank.

He had tried to stay rational as he wondered if they’d taken something out. Probably not, he decided.

There were only stitches, no surgical drain. If they’d done anything major to him, they’d have used a drain. Bellamy knew what a drain looked like (courtesy of Lopez and his kidney removal, back on the Ark) and he could tell they hadn’t bothered to put one on his wound.

 

So no, they didn’t remove anything. Or maybe they did, and setting a drain was the least of their worries because in a couple of days Bellamy would be drained for good and his ass would be grass anyway.

Did they just poke around in there to see the state of his innards? _Lovely liver you’ve got there, young man_. _And look at this splendid pair of kidneys!_

 

On that thought, Bellamy dimly realized he was still high on whatever sedative they’d used. He tried to stay awake, but his eyelids were too heavy.

 

He slept well into the third day; the white coats did not trouble him.

However, the nightmares did.

 

He dreamt of Grounders being strapped upside down, their blood slowly filling a pool where he lay drowning.

Suddenly, Clarke was in the pool with him, her hair dyed bright red with the Grounder’s blood. She was kissing him, telling him his fight was over, and he was choking on blood and her. The next second, she plunged a knife between his ribs, yelling at him to wake up.

 

Wake up he did.

Blood was oozing from the wound on his side. He grunted as he gingerly touched the wound, figuring he must have torn a stitch in his sleep.

The clock on the wall indicated 5:30.

 

He slipped out of his cage. He knew he didn’t have much time, the first rounds in the lab started at 6. He had to be back by then.

 

On his way to Miller’s dorm room, he stumbled upon Carl Emerson, the chief guard, and Cage Wallace, holed up in the command center. The discussion he overheard turned his blood to ice. They had a horrible plan and he needed to warn Clarke right away.

 

He moved swiftly and soundlessly through the walls and the deserted corridors, avoiding the cameras.

 

When he reached the dorm room, to let Jasper and Miller know, he only found empty beds and broken glass. The 47 had already been taken away.  
  
He was standing there, in the devastation of the dorm room when Emerson walked in and saw him. The man’s eyes grew wide in surprise, and Bellamy hightailed it out of there before the guard had time to react.

 

He ran all the way to the lab and took the drop to the Reaper’s tunnel without looking back.

 

  -- When, my, time comes around --  
\-- Lay me gently in the cold dark earth --  
\-- No grave can hold my body down --  
\-- I'll crawl home to her –

 

 

_I need to find Clarke and warn her about Emerson and Wallace’s plan._

 

In the woods, the Reapers are hot on his heels; he can hear their battle cries in the distance. He hopes to whatever God is left out there that Lincoln is okay.

 

The stitches on his side burst one after the other and he can feel the blood seeping through the bandage and trickling down his skin.

 

_I need to find Clarke and warn her about Emerson and Wallace’s plan._

 

As he runs, the sentence turns into a strange mantra.

 

 _I need_ , inhale, _to find Clarke_ , exhale, _and warn her_ , left foot down, _about Emerson_ , sole of the foot connecting with the ground, propelling him forward, _and Wallace’s plan_.

 

It’s like a steady rhythm anchoring him, like a work song guiding his movements, setting the cadence.

 

_I need to find Clarke and warn her about Emerson and Wallace’s plan._

 

After some time, his body starts moving on automatic. His running becomes a mechanic reaction, his body takes over, guided by the mantra, and his brain gets sidetracked.

 

He wonders.

 

What if… What if everything that happened to him in there, what if it was just retribution?

For the things he did, for the lives he took? Maybe Karma is a thing and payback is a bitch.

And since the list of his sins is absurdly long, a couple of days of torture are nowhere near enough in the atonement department.

 

Bellamy really, really doesn’t want Karma to be a thing.

 

Clarke forgave him for what he did, and he thought he was able to forgive himself, through her. But the thing is, he didn’t. The guilt is still here, rearing its ugly head out of nowhere.

 

Thinking of Clarke brings him back to his mantra.

 

_I need to find Clarke and warn her…_

 

 

\-- My baby never fret none --  
\-- About what my hands and my body done --  
\-- If the Lord don't forgive me --  
\-- I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me --

 

 

Blood starts running down his nose.

Each puff of air leaving his mouth turns into a spray of blood, splattering the warm liquid on his chin, running down his throat.

He has no idea where he is. Is he near the camp? Are his feet taking him back to the Dropship? He’s been running on autopilot for a while, now.

 

_I need to find Clarke…_

 

He’s limping, the hard leather and the wooden sole of the Grounder shoe is a brand new kind of torture on his already mauled foot. Karma _is_ a thing, he’s sure of it now.

 

He presses one hand to the wound on his side, to keep the pain in there.

It doesn’t work very well.

_I need… Clarke…_

 

He is falling apart, so he uses all his will to concentrate on his mantra. He can’t stop, he needs to push forward, to warn Clarke.

 

_Clarke…_

 

He climbs a small hill on all fours and there’s only one word flashing through his mind, _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

That, and the absolute necessity to keep running.

 

 

So when he sees her, suddenly on the top of that hill, smack-dab in the middle of a troupe of bearded Grounders twice her size, he’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating. He closes his eyes and he holds his breath for a second, but no, she’s still there when he looks again.

And she has seen him.

 

She’s there, a few feet away from him, her eyes still wide from the fright he has just given her. He must be far from a pretty sight right now.

 

His name tumbles from her lips and she’s taking a hesitant step toward him, arms outstretched.

 

 

  -- When, my, time comes around --  
\-- Lay me gently in the cold dark earth --  
\-- No grave can hold my body down --  
\-- I'll crawl home to her --

 

 

His chest expands as relief floods in him. He can breathe again. He spits out the blood filling his mouth and he grunts a word through gritted teeth. The only one he can think of.

 

“Run.”

  
He launches himself toward her and he is sprinting, heavy feet stumbling on the fallen leaves littering the earth. He careens into her and nearly sends them both rolling on the ground, but he steadies them, snaking a hand around her back and burying his fingers in her thick tresses. She holds onto his shoulders for dear life.

 

His mouth is right by her ear and he has the time wheeze out “Run, they’re coming…” before his knees buckle and he starts falling.

 

Clarke’s grabbing at him, clutching him to her chest, but he’s too heavy for her and they slowly slide to the ground in a tangle of limbs. She is yelling, asking him something about the blood, but he can’t make any sense out of it.

 

He did it. He found her.

He came back to her.

 

 

  -- When, my, time comes around --  
\-- Lay me gently in the cold dark earth --  
\-- No grave can hold my body down --  
\-- I'll crawl home to her --

 

 

His sight is starting to dim. He desperately tries to fight the darkness and the tiredness threatening to overwhelm him. He needs to warn her.

“Clarke… listen… Emerson and Wallace…”

 

She’s not listening; she is frantically trying to stem the flow of blood on his side.

“What happened to you! I thought you were safe! What did they do to you? Oh my God, Bellamy, what happened to you?”

 

“It’s not important, listen…”

 

“What do you mean, not important?”

She’s nearly manic.

 

“Listen to me!”

His voice is shrill; he must sound even more unhinged than her, but he desperately needs her to understand.

 

She listens, as he slowly, haltingly relates Wallace’s plan. When he’s finished, she sends a couple of Grounders to the camp to let her mother know and to bring back a stretcher.

 

All the time he talked, she didn’t move, she kept her arms around his torso, his head cradled in the crook of her shoulder.

 

She’s trying to hold back tears, now.

“I thought you were safe.”

 

He sighs a bit and shrugs his shoulder. The left one. He can’t move the right one without pain shooting down his entire torso.

“I survived.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, voice so low he almost can’t hear her.

 

He purses his lips.

“Don’t be. You were right. It was worth the risk.”

He doesn’t mean it in a bitter way, he really thinks so. It was a good gamble. One they had to take.

 

But tears are falling down her cheeks.

“No, it wasn’t. It’s too steep of a price to pay. I didn’t agree to that.”

 

She cradles his cheek with a trembling hand, pressing her lips to his sweat-soaked brow.

“I didn’t agree to this,” she reiterates in a broken sob.

He can feel her tears falling in his hair and sliding down his scalp.

 

He squeezes her hand, trying to reassure her. To let her know that it’s okay.

Because, really, it is. He came back. They’ll be able to stop Wallace, now that the Ark is warned. They’ll save their friends.

 

He can’t see the sky, Clarke’s hair is obscuring his vision.

 

He doesn’t mind.

 

 

 

\-- When I was kissing on my baby --  
\-- And she put her love down soft and sweet --  
\-- In the lowland plot I was free --  
\-- Heaven and hell were words to me --

 

  -- When, my, time comes around --  
\-- Lay me gently in the cold dark earth --  
\-- No grave can hold my body down --  
\-- I'll crawl home to her --

 

 

  

 

* * *

 

 

Currently working on part 4 'Bellarke Reunion, Side B', it should be up next week-end.  
(And it's nowhere near as happy as this one... :/ )

Come and say "Hi!" on Tumblr, I'm currently taming the beast.  
The name's [Maimaktês](http://maimaktes.tumblr.com)! :3


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